Vatican says it has 'no secrets' in case of missing teenager

The Vatican has nothing to hide and is willing to work with investigators to solve the baffling mystery surrounding the disappearance of a teenage girl almost 30 years ago, Vatican media spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi and Emanuela Orlandi, who vanished in Rome in June 1983Photo: AP

By Josephine McKenna, Rome

3:35PM BST 15 Apr 2012

Father Lombardi also rejected suggestions of a cover-up regarding the fate of .

In a statement released on Saturday, Father Lombardi said there were "no secrets" at the Vatican and officials were co-operating fully with the investigation when required.

"Nothing has been hidden, nor are there any 'secrets' in the Vatican to be revealed on this topic," Father Lombardi said.

"To continue to assert that is completely unjustified; and we reiterate again that all the material from the Vatican was handed over to investigating prosecutors and police authorities."

"All the Vatican authorities co-operated with commitment and transparency with Italian authorities to deal with the kidnapping in the first phase and also later investigations," he said.

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Orlandi's kidnapping by unidentified men in Rome has been the subject of intense speculation for three decades, with claims that it was connected to blackmail and banking scandals involving the Holy See.

Rome prosecutors have alleged that "someone in the Vatican" knows the fate of Orlandi, who was 15 years old when she disappeared.

One theory is that the girl's father, a Vatican employee, had found documents that connected the Vatican's bank with organised crime in Rome and that she was kidnapped in a bid to silence him.

The alleged mastermind of the kidnapping was Enrico "Renatino" De Pedis, leader of a ruthless criminal gang known as the Magliana.

He was shot dead by rival gangsters in central Rome in 1990 and his body was interred in a crypt in the Basilica of Sant' Apollinare.

It has always been considered highly unusual for a known mafia criminal to have been buried in a church where popes and cardinals are interred and there is speculation that Miss Orlandi 's remains are buried in the tomb next to De Pedis.

Pietro Orlandi, Miss Orlandi's brother, welcomed the Vatican's comments saying it was the first "official step" that he and others had been requesting for years.